It's one of the largest indoor skating facilities in the state of New Jersey, attracting people from all over the Tri-State area.
But when Hurricane Irene passed through, Garden Skate was left under several feet of water.
Now, with the help of some special artists, the Pinebrook Facility is back up and running.
And with us this morning, Pod Schwarz, the owner of Garden Skate, and graffiti artist Ray Demmer Jopies.
Is that right?
Pretty good, pretty good Jopies.
Great name.
Thank you.
So how did Garden Skate begin?
Skateboarding has always been a passion of mine, but I thought it would be something, it would be a change of life thing.
I didn't want my kids to grow up with me working 20 hours, and this has afforded me the opportunity to be around my children all the time,
and to share a passion with them, which is great.
And it's gotten so popular, I know anybody who skates in the whole, not even just in New Jersey,
but people come from New York and all over the skate there, because it's such a great facility.
When Hurricane Irene decided to come pay you a visit, it was a pretty devastating blow, wasn't it?
It sure was.
We were in a low-lying area that never saw that much water ever, even though it got flooded from time to time.
We were over three, four feet of water, had to take a canoe into the park.
Wow.
So how did you rebuild?
Well, immediately we went out there to see if there was FEMA insurance, and quickly found out that there wasn't.
So we had to roll our sleeves up, and I decided to go back to the art community,
which makes Garden Skate so atypical, and our friends know,
they said, why don't we do an art show and get the whole place going again.
So Garden Skate is very unique in the sense that there's no corporate advertising in it.
It's all adorned by art from different artists from around the world.
What we're going to be doing is jump-starting what we did before,
but doing it with a better plan.
So right now, we're all done.
We're ready for our party tonight.
Hopefully, we don't know too much.
And there'll be people from all around the world coming in to see a lot of this urban art.
And it's quite the museum.
It is.
We're looking at some of them.
Is that you?
It looks just like you.
So Ray, it's interesting because I know skateboarding and graffiti art are urban art.
It has a long history together.
Yeah, both forms have grown up together.
They're always intertwined.
There's always a young, you know, I know you couldn't tell if they're looking at me,
but it's always a young person's art, young at heart, young at age, whatever the case may be.
So they've always come together.
And in a place like Garden Skate, what we've done is we've made it basically a cultural center
where you have the skateboard and you have the graffiti art.
We're going to have music.
We're going to have all different kinds of things where it doesn't limit a kid
by socioeconomic background or anything like that.
Anybody can come in there and enjoy.
You know what's really cool to me?
We got to go in a second.
But what's really cool is that they're both kind of counterculture.
Skateboarding has always kind of been frowned upon by proper society and so has graffiti.
And now graffiti is not seen as vandalism.
It's seen as true art and skateboarding is seen as a true sport.
I think that's fantastic.
Guys, really looking forward to it.
Thanks for coming in.
Thanks for having me.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
All right, Garden Skate.
That's it.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thanks again to those who are watching out now.
Our show and fundraiser kicks off.
At six o'clock tonight at Find Drug Neutrality for more information head over to our website
cbsnyork.com.
We'll be back in a minute.
We look forward to that.
Sorry.
Elevate your business to the next level with the Uni-
